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Russian State-Sponsored APT Actor Compromises U.S. Government Targets: Interview with Professor Matthew Warren, Director of RMIT University Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation.

“Since at least September 2020, a Russian state-sponsored APT actor—known variously as Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, TeamSpy, Dragonfly, Havex, Crouching Yeti, and Koala in open-source reporting — has conducted a campaign against a wide variety of U.S. targets.” National Cyber Awareness System Alert (AA20-296A) - Russian State-Sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat Actor Compromises U.S. Government Targets: October 22, 2020

Just two weeks out from the US federal election, the CISA-FBI jointly warned (AA20-296A/B) that “Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are likely intent on influencing and interfering with the U.S. elections to sow discord among voters and undermine public confidence in the U.S. electoral process.

The APT actors are creating fictitious media sites and spoofing legitimate media sites to spread obtained U.S. voter-registration data, anti-American propaganda, and misinformation about voter suppression, voter fraud, and ballot fraud.

The APT actors have historically exploited critical vulnerabilities to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, structured query language (SQL) injections attacks, spear-phishing campaigns, website defacements, and disinformation campaigns.

The Russian state-sponsored APT actor has targeted dozens of SLTT government and aviation networks, attempted intrusions at several SLTT organizations, successfully compromised network infrastructure, and as of October 1, 2020, exfiltrated data from at least two victim servers.”

Alongside this latest allegation Russia and Iran are again sponsoring attacks against US democracy and government information system infrastructure, the United States is also facing a third wave of COVID-19, reaching over 80,000 daily cases (25 Oct) and with some forecasts calculating that over 500,000 Americans will die from the pandemic by the end of February 2021. How the US responds to these issues, and a myriad of other significant domestic and international challenges is up to voters and the ultimate outcome to the election.

Link to the Cyber Risk Leaders Magazine, Issue 3

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Recorded 27 October 2020 - #MySecurityTV